Payment cards in the form of cash cards, purchase cards and credit cards overflow the market today. Essentially all department-stores, larger food-stores, mail-order companies, gas-companies, card-companies have one or many of the card types available to customers. Most have all three alternatives.
If the user wants a cash card the customer can apply for this at the bank or company the user would like to use. If accepted, this means that the user can only use the money on the account in the respective bank or company that has issued the card.
If the user wants a purchase card, the user has to apply for this at the company in question. If accepted, this means that the user's purchases are debited once a month or as agreed.
If the user applies for a credit card the credit is on a pre-established sum with normally requires a monthly payment to the bank or company giving the credit.
In order to obtain any of these payment alternatives the user must be over 18 years of age and have a good credit record. The time for handling the card applications vary. However, it frequently takes between 2 to 4 weeks after the applicant has been accepted until the applicant receives get the card.
Due to the rules requiring the applicant to be over 18 and with a good credit record, the number of possible transactions via existing terminals, remaining card payment and Internet commerce are reduced.
The security associated with the currently available cash cards, purchase cards and credit cards are unsatisfactory. Anybody can have the cards unlawfully used through skimming, cloning or by an unauthorized person getting hold of a card number and card data in order to execute transactions on Internet. The result of this may have unforeseeable consequences for the unfortunate victim who may get his account emptied or his credit is unlawfully used by another.
One object of the present invention is to eliminate the above problems and improve security related to payments by means of different types of payment cards and the like so that banks as well as customers run less risk when the cards are used. Another object of the present invention is to make the payment cards available to persons that today cannot quality to gain access to conventional payment cards.